Full of turkey and fresh off of a 10 day rest, the Owen Sound Attack will kick off the unofficial 2nd half of the Ontario Hockey League season with three games beginning on Thursday, Dec. 28.

With 32 games under their belts already, and a record of 14-13-1-4 (33 points, 4th Midwest Division), Owen Sound will begin their push for the post season by playing host to the Kitchener Rangers in a rare Thursday night match up.

The game, which kicks off at 7:00pm on Dec. 28, pits the Attack against the Midwest Division leading Rangers and their record of 21-11-2-0 through 34 games.

Thursday night’s game is the 6th of eight meetings between the sides, with the Rangers holding a 3-2 advantage in the season series.

The last meeting between the two teams saw the Rangers win 5-4 in overtime at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium on Friday, Dec. 1.

Owen Sound will be without power forwards Jonah Gadjovich and Maksim Sushko for Thursday night’s game, who are representing Canada and Belarus at the 2018 World Junior Hockey Championships in Buffalo, New York.

Fans can purchase tickets for Thursday’s tilt at the MacVicar & McComb ReMax Attack Box Office – which will reopen at 8:30am on Wednesday, Dec. 27 – online at www.attackhockey.com, or by calling 519-371-7452.

Kitchener’s Joseph Garreffa must love playing at the Bayshore, his three points during the Rangers 5-1 win over Owen Sound on Thursday night bumped his season total to 14 in six games against the Attack.

“I just don’t think we’re hard enough on him,” said Attack assistant coach Al Letang about the five-foot-seven winger following the game. “He needs that space to make those plays and if you go in and stick check him . . . he’s going to make plays.”

Jacob Friend hoped the Attack would be ready to go following the break, he expected a match-up against the division-leading Rangers to fuel the fire.

“You get that playoff mentality playing a division rival like the Rangers,’ he said. “Keep it easy, everything simple. It’s the first game back, get all the rust out and go from there.”

However, the Attack spoiled an early opportunity in the first period failing to convert on a Kitchener too-many-men bench minor. The league’s top powerplay hasn’t clicked lately, setting the table for Kitchener to take a turn with the man advantage when Markus Phillips’ was handed a double-minor for high sticking.

The Rangers had better luck. Greg Meireles punched a puck past a sprawling Olivier Lafreniere at the side of the net just over ten minutes into the game. Garreffa, the Bayshore bully, made it 2-0 Rangers with a seeing-eye floater from the point which made its way through a screened Lafreniere.

Garreffa would feature again with under a minute left in the period making a nice breakout pass in the neutral zone to Cole Carter who slid the puck across the width of the ice to Swedish-import Rickard Hugg who fired it into the open net. A tic-tac-toe period ender put the Rangers up three as the teams headed into the first intermission.

“Outworked. Out battled. Out competed. That pretty much sums it up,” said Letang. “Hard work has nothing to do with taking the last ten days off.”

The Attack only managed four shots in the first period, the team seemed to be in a turkey trance.

“Some of the young guys sometimes have tendencies of missing home more than normal,” said Friend of the first game after the holiday break. “You get back home and remember what it’s like, and you get more homesick.”

The Rangers sure felt at home Thursday night at the Bayshore. Just over three minutes into the second period Garreffa would pick up his third point of the game assisting on Connor Bunnaman’s powerplay goal, the Philadelphia Flyers prospect’s 16th of the season.

Owen Sound found their legs a little bit in the second period outshooting Kitchener 10-5. The Attack’s best chance coming on an Aidan Dudas breakaway turned aside by a calm and collected Luke Richardson. Nick Suzuki, pointless in two games since returning from Team Canada’s selection camp, tried to bank in a marker from behind the goal line late in the second. Richardson wasn’t fooled and the Attack were held scoreless heading into the final frame.

The Attack had a chance to claw back into the game in the third period when Connor Hall flung a clearing attempt over the glass while killing a penalty putting the Rangers down two men.

Owen Sound controlled the play with Nick Suzuki pulling Richardson out of position before sliding a pass over to Ethan Szypula all alone in front with a wide open cage which he missed completely as the puck clanged high off the glass behind Richardson.

“I maybe thought I was a little closer than I was and kind of just skyrocketed the puck there,” he said following the game. “Wish I had kind of bared down and buried that.”

Markus Phillips would get the Attack on the board just as time expired on Hall’s penalty when a clearing attempt landed on the tape of his stick at the blueline and the Los Angeles Kings draft pick fired it home.

Minutes later the Rangers would kill any thoughts of an Attack rally when Jack York scored his third of the season with under five minutes remaining in the game.

Coach Todd Gill left Lafreniere in the net down four as the Rangers withered the game away padding their Midwest division lead.

“From the first shift to the last shift they were the team who wanted the two points and they came in and took it,” said Letang.

Szypula, one of the longest serving Attack players, said the team needs to play with an identity he’s come to know over the years.

“Owen Sound has always been a hard working team,” he said. “Today we lacked that. We weren’t ready to play today . . . hopefully this is a good wake up call for us.”

Lafreniere stopped 22 of 27 shots while Richardson got in front of 27 of the Attack’s 28 shots.

The Owen Sound Attack are back at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre on Saturday to host the Barrie Colts in the first half of a home-and-home series to close out 2017, puck drop is at 7:30 p.m.

Totally outclassed by the Rangers. I'm not sure the three key forwards missing make a difference when there's this much dysfunction, this much distrust out on the ice. There's nowhere to hide in our little rink.

Too bad for Lafreniere, he really had no chance on any of the goals, and the team defence hung him out to dry.

The Sault, Sarnia, Kitchener, London... How many more teams showing they're better than us does it take to convince management we just aren't gonna have it this season? Let the fairweather fans drop their season tickets, think of the big picture.

WOW I'm going to centre out 2 people here even though probably 19 would be more appropriate. Ollie was by himself tonight he gets a pass on that game. My first thumbs down Todd Gill it is the Coaches job to prepare and motivate BIG fail on both parts. Second, and apologies to his many fans of which I am one, Nick Suzuki he could have elevated his game and shown that being cut was a mistake instead he looked average at his best. He showed me why he was cut from team Canada. I wonder if the team had a welcome back Turkey Dinner as a pre-game meal it sure looked like it.